Georgia passes "hate crime" law, and revokes "citizen's arrest" law

The state of Georgia has passed a "hate crime" law, and revoked its "citizen's arrest" law.

This would mean, for example, that if you saw someone stealing your car, it would be against the law to stop them.

Of course all the news articles are celebrating this, without going into all the implications of what this will mean.
https://www.ajc.com/politics/a-birt...tizens-arrest-law/YRXSTMLS7BEWJDPRQWZGZ3FAPU/


The exceptions are that employees of businesses can still stop customers from leaving, but only for a short time, and then have to release them (including all their personal belongings) if police do not arrive in a timely manner. (might be a likely possibility in some areas)
And the change in the citizen's arrest law mostly does not affect people's homes. Citizen arrests are still allowed in the case of imminent threat to life.


I think what has happened is demographics have been shifting and state Republicans are desperate to stay in power. Then the media has been whipping up the African American community (a third of the population in the state) who are demanding "things be done" in response to the stories being carried on the news. Then on top of that, a lot of Republican leaders in a state like Georgia are "neocons", so were all too willing to sell out to maintain popularity to win short term elections and prevent the African American vote from turning against them.

I personally believe civil liberties are important, and the African American community may have some legitimate grievances (Georgia has traditionally never been very good when it comes to respect of civil liberties), but these laws were not the proper way to address that. Everyone is always looking for simple answers to problems. Too often those simple answers are the wrong answers. It almost becomes like mob rule. Then you have the news whipping people up into emotion, trying to get people to see problems in terms of a certain lens. (Just blame "racism" for the problems instead of getting into the more difficult details)

The news media is presenting this as if it were some moderate reasonable idea, when in reality it's kind of radical.

For example, suppose there's a jewelry store robbery and someone is running off with some very expensive merchandise. If you are not an employee of the business, it would now be a felony if you tried to stop them.

It's as if they want there to be fewer people who could stop a criminal, because they are so concerned about maybe a criminal getting hurt during a low-level theft.

There probably should have been some more specific rules about when exactly force can be used, but totally sweeping away the legal ability of anyone to stop a thief was not the answer.

 

Citizens arrest laws probably shouldn't cover public property. But they absolutely should cover private property. If its true you cant legally try to stop someone from stealing your car (or your anything), then Georgia is going totally overboard and I expect their crime rate is about to explode.

Is it that you cant try to stop someone while they're stealing your property or is it that you cant try to stop someone after they tried to steal your property?

 

The issue it seems is not specifically so much about whether you are allowed to "stop" them, but about whether you are allowed to arrest or detain them.

The change in the law removes the entire part of Article 4.

Title 17: Criminal Procedure
Chapter 4: Arrest of Persons
Article 4: Arrest by Private Persons

"A private person may arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge. If the offense is a felony and the offender is escaping or attempting to escape, a private person may arrest him upon reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion."
​

I am not entirely sure but I think this could very much end up having a cascade effect on whether or not a private person would be allowed to stop a criminal from committing a crime. If you can not use the justification that you were trying to stop the criminal from getting away, then your legal justification for using physical force against them could become much weaker in many situations.

If the criminal is trying to escape with something valuable, that could enter a bit of a grey zone, I think.

 

stopping someone from committing a crime (like stealing your car) is not the same as arresting and detaining them

if they tried to steal your car, and you stopped them, and they ran, and you chased them down is what this refers too - at that point it's a job for the police

 

In most cases, the criminal will get away before police can arrive.

In the majority of these cases, police will not later be able to determine who the criminal was.


It might not be a theft. Another example could be someone who punches you in the face and then starts walking away.
If they have a mask on, do you still believe none of the bystanders around you should do anything?

 

That is not true.

Again, not true, to merely stop a crime.

You probably should have looked into the specific "rules," before posting this thread. The article is rather vague.

[snip]

Today we are replacing a Civil War-era law ripe for abuse with language that balances the sacred right to self defense of a person’s property with our shared responsibility to root out injustice and set our state on a better path forward,” Kemp said as he signed House Bill 479 into law with Cooper-Jones by his side and flanked by a bipartisan group of state lawmakers. “Today, in honor of Ahmaud’s memory, we commit to taking this step forward together.”

The law was first enacted in 1863 to allow white Georgians to capture slaves who were fleeing to fight in the Union Army. Later, the law was used through the early 1900s to justify the lynching of Black people without repercussions.

HB 479 would remove “citizen’s arrest” from state law while still allowing employees at businesses, those conducting business on someone else’s property, security officers, private investigators and inspectors at truck scales to detain someone they believe has committed a crime. The bill also would allow law enforcement officers to make arrests outside their jurisdictions.

Georgians who detain someone they suspect of committing a crime would be required to either contact police enforcement within a “reasonable amount of time” of holding that person or release them.

[end]

We really need see the bill, but it does not prohibit defending ones own, or anyone else's life or property; only, apparently, to detain the person threatening that property. Perhaps there is even an exception, for violent crimes, committed in public (or there should be). How this will work, will probably be on a case by case basis. That is, from the article's lack of specificity, I would assume that the decision of how to treat anyone, detaining another person unlawfully, will be a matter of the discretion of the police & prosecutors, & will play itself out in court; especially in cases in which the criminal brings charges against his capturer, in civil court. But nowhere in the article, does it say that it is now a "felony if you tried to stop" a criminal, as you claim.

For example, if you are attacked by someone, you still have the right to defend yourself; theoretically, if you are holding the attacker on the ground, that could certainly be seen as protecting yourself. Also, if the person you detained was a murderer, or a serial rapist, I doubt that the police or D.A. would be interested in charging or prosecuting you, for any crime. And good luck to that type of criminal, being awarded any damages, in a civil suit.

 

But that's a lie.

That is just what the article says and gives the impression of, and that is just a quote from a politician.

You cannot always trust characterizations of things made by people in politics.

The whole point in my opening post was that the news article was dishonestly trying to mischaracterize this law change.

 

Well then you have no excuse to not have a better source-- the bill itself-- to measure the article against. Everything you are calling a mischaracterization, seems based purely on your own assumptions.

You cannot always trust a poster's assumptions, either.

 

The main issue is the part of the previously existing law that this bill deletes. And I have already covered that in my second post.

 

That is technically correct, but like I stated, this would very likely end up having a cascade effect on being able to defend property.

If your only legal justification for using physical force to stop the person is to try to retrieve your property they are running away with, rather than to stop the criminal until police can arrive, then the legal justification to use physical force is going to be much weaker. You might face criminal charges in a situation you would previously not have, under the old law.

And someone could steal from you, and then come back and steal from you the next day, and then the next day. Not being able to detain them for police is ultimately going to make it more difficult to defend property rights in several types of situations.

Or, like I previously suggested, how about a perpetrator who harms someone else, but then no longer poses an immediate threat right that instant and tries to get away?
(Many people would argue that stopping them is, ultimately, a form of defense against that person later harming someone else)

 

I hadn't gotten to that, yet. Now that I have, not being a lawyer, it still seems rather gray to me. That is, holding someone can no longer be considered a "citizen's arrest." But there is no default answer as to what it should be considered, instead. In some cases, one could probably be charged with something like "false imprisonment," or "kidnapping." But there are plenty of other possibilities, as well, including not being charged with a crime. For example, say that someone is on a shooting rampage, and you wing him, with your own gun. Even if he hadn't been shooting at you, c'mon, the cops are not going to charge that hero with "assault with a deadly weapon." The same thing applies, if the guy was trying to escape, let's say from a school, where he just shot some kids, and you stopped & held him for police-- they're gonna charge you? Or-- though this would not be the normal, community reaction-- imagine some woman being raped, as in an alleyway, and the neighbors hear it, come down & not only stop the attacker, but pin him down, & call police. All right, you can't call it a citizen's arrest, but do you really think anyone is going to call it assault? Even if it were charged, what jury would convict?

So, as I'd originally said, in lieu of any specific directions, regarding how to handle non- authorized "citizens' arrests," I think it will all depend on the circumstances of the case in question.

 

take pictures if you can, the better you can identify them, the better

your last example, I would say no, they should be able to stop them, but they better be able to prove he did that, cause if the victim lied or started it, they should go to prison if they harm the person - it carries a lot of legal risks to detain a person by force (as it should, one better be dang sure before doing so)

 

That's essentially what I've been saying. Removing this law doesn't guarantee that violators will face charges, but it removes the idea of a free pass. And yes, if you are not really in the right, you can now get clobbered, legally speaking. But if you are being a conscientious citizen, and the cops have the goods on the perp, it is going to become problematic for the state to prosecute, even if they wanted to (which they probably would not). Maybe you'd get charged with a misdemeanor.

I can't imagine that citizen's arrest are anything but a rare occurrence, anyhow. So maybe it was felt there was more danger in encouraging over- zealous, citizen cops, than in discouraging the rare, true hero.
Obviously, for more minor crimes, this will discourage citizens from stepping into law enforcement's shoes (if they're smart). But I can't see a person being charged for not allowing a dangerous criminal, to stay out, on the streets.

 

yep, this only really was to make sure people knew that killing a fleeing perp would not be tolerated, detaining a perp has risks

will it have unintended consequences, time will tell

 

You know this is not true, right?

The law allows one to stop someone if one has immediate knowledge of a crime they committed.

You just don't get to detain someone you suspect may have committed a crime. And for sure don't get to shoot him.

 

Not anymore.

That is why this thread was started.

Go look at the part of the law that was deleted.

 

You can still defend your property. In your example- someone stealing your car in front of you- you could stop him. You just couldn't detain him. Citizens of GA only lost their power to detain each other.

The law was repealed because 3 yahoos shot a man because they thought he might have been guilty of a crime. They had no proximate knowledge a crime had been committed. Essentially the yahoos shot the man because he refused to be detained by them, not having committed a crime.

In short, the morons killed a man because they thought maybe he was a criminal. Without evidence beyond the color of his skin. Without even evidence of a crime.

 

That's not entirely true, and can be kind of a misleading statement.
It's not that simple.

Think carefully about what the difference is and what that would end up meaning in actual practice.

If you think being able to detain someone doesn't have any connection to property rights, you are mistaken.

That is not a good reason to repeal this law.
People are just being simple minded and looking for quick easy answers.

 

It is that simple. It's you who are trying to make a simple idea complicated.

It would mean you could use the same means today that you could use a year ago to defend your property. The salient fact is that you get to keep your car. Let the cops find the thief, That's what they do.

Delineate that connection. My property rights extend to being allowed to use it at will and allowing or disallowing use by others. There is no arrest property right.

People are looking for ways to prevent killings. I would call that a worthy goal, and a good reason to repeal a law.
As to its effect one way or the other, let's wait and see. I'm betting on a big bucket of nothing.

 

Meantime, you seem to be looking for ways to lighten the sentences of pedophiles because they do no harm. Jesus H. Christ! Do you ever read what you write?

 

It's probably not a good idea to make a citizen's arrest anyway. You could be held responsible if the person you're trying to detain is hurt or killed. In the Arbery case, the prosecution argued that you forfeit the right of self defense when making a citizen's arrest. Therefore, the men who chased Arbery did not have a right to shoot him when he turned around and attacked them. Apparently, the jury bought that argument.

 

Thank you. You just provided reason number 4,896 why I am so glad I retired to Texas.

 

Just defend yourself and your property and worry about the legalities later.

 

Here in Texas we don't have to worry about "legalities". Our laws reflect common sense and all you have to do is the right thing. You yourself described the law that is the subject of your post as "radical". We have no such laws here... just common sense ones. We don't "worry" about laws here. We APPRECIATE them.

 

I've heard these type of ignorant statements from conservatives before. You don't think Georgia was like how Texas is today, not so long ago?
You don't see how what happened in Georgia has a high chance of happening in your state in a few more decades?

It's time for people like you to face things.
The mentality of many conservatives is "I don't care what's happening over there because it could never happen here". Seems a lot of conservatives have their head in the sand and can't (or don't want to) see what's coming ahead in the road.